


Genesis

by BannedBloodOranges



Series: Wild Places of Creation [3]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Disturbing Themes, Gen, Graphic Imagery, Implied/Referenced Torture, Legate Joshua Graham, M/M, Pre-Hoover Dam, Slavery, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:29:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBloodOranges/pseuds/BannedBloodOranges
Summary: "Daniel shields in the tight passages that feed into the Canyon, but even he knows it is hopeless. Scouts have reported Legionaries closing off the pathways that lead into Zion National Park. The way is closed."The Malpais Legate takes a slave.
Relationships: Daniel/Joshua Graham (Fallout)
Series: Wild Places of Creation [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675477
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Non-profit fun only.

Red.

The Legion flags are announced by drumbeats. The storm of their rhythm hunts the fleeing tribals into the canyons. Daniel follows them. He is new here, having trekked the long 16 into the flank of the mountain. Three days he has lived among these people in rocky translation, weeding out the language and trying to mould it to his tongue. But it is a journey taken in vain, for the Legion have cast their crimson shadow over his footfall.

Daniel shields in the tight passages that feed into the Canyon, but even he knows it is hopeless. Scouts have reported Legionaries closing off the pathways that lead into Zion National Park. The way is closed. The Tribals have fled, taken the routes they have devised for two hundred years. One of the women had looked upon Daniel favourably and asked if he wished to come with them.

With a heavy heart, he had refused and watched them wade into the clean water and disappear. He would have followed, if not for Thomas.

Missionaries usually travel in pairs. Chatty Thomas had been four years his senior, an eye for pretty women and all too happy to try whatever pickings they had pawned off the traders - even beer when he thought Daniel wasn't looking.

Two days earlier, he had left with a young woman who had come sauntering by with a smile and a story. Daniel had been too occupied with his evangelising to stop nor chastise him.

He prays the tribe has hidden well.

Night falls. Daniel watches through the crack in his shallow cave. The flagbearers are grim figures, eyes shaded by hoods and goggles. The soldiers, men of broad figure and harsh Latin, are splatters of crimson in the moonlight.

They settle and make camp. The wind picks up and agitates their bonfires. They huddle close, firelight illuminating their hungry, bruised, brutal faces. On the horizon, three figures emerge and the men scramble to their feet, beating their chests in a war song.

Daniel knew that Latin had once been the language of the Lord. To hear it thus, violently bellowed out into the night. It is a mutilation of the beautiful. The three figures come closer, and Daniel realises it was an ode, an honour, to their commander.

He has heard of this man beneath the breath of New Canaan’s elders. He had prayed it had been a rumour, a lie, a morality tale. But the Malpais Legate, in black and white save for a red sash knotted around his waist, holds up his pale hand and the surrounding men fall silent. His two guards beat their drums to a standstill. The Legate passes the men who follow his footsteps with noticeable awe. In his wake, Daniel spies a fourth figure. 

Thomas's right hand is a weeping stump. One eye has been plucked messily from his socket, and from a tongueless mouth, he moans piteously. On his back, carved deep into New Canaan plaid, is an ugly X. He is dragged behind like a dog.

He loses his footing, trips among the dirt and bracken. Laughter rises from the surrounding men like smoke. The fire flickers, illuminating the pinch of light in their pupils, the sheen of their teeth. A woman rises to serve them drinks. She is pretty and dead-eyed, the same woman who had skulked to their camp two days previous.

The Legate takes his seat, a wicker chair decorated with fur and horn. He takes his wine and watches his men in silence. The woman, having served her purpose, is quickly dismissed.

Thomas crawls to the Legate's feet. Joshua Graham forces his chin up with the tip of his vain snakeskin shoes. Thomas burbles, blood leaking down his chin in dark rivets.

Joshua looks up, toward the mountain. Then, slowly, his frosty eyes settle on the nest of passageways that make up Daniel's hiding place.

He clicks his fingers, points. His two chosen guards follow accordingly.

Daniel rests one hand on his rifle. He has one case of buckshot, a machete blade blunted from chopping wood and a handful of grenades. Aside from that, he has the clothes on his back, a lean amount of food, fifty caps and his scripture.

There is not enough to bargain nor defend. And these men, he fears, have no place in their hearts for his "good news."

They have not found him yet.

He squeezes between the rocks, settles his gun on his knee, waiting. He hears the echo of their voices in the caves. The mire is easily stirred, easy enough to track his footfall. He closes his eyes, mutters a prayer. He feels utterly alone. The sky that holds his Lord is clear and empty.

Footsteps reach the intimate space of his ear. He opens his eyes. The two men watch him with a snake smile.

"Come peacefully," One of them is troublingly young, a Dog's head hung over his face. His light voice is marred with malice, despite the reasonable tone. "And you shall not be harmed."

Daniel is silent.

"Come now, as Vulpes Inculta demands," The other man is bigger, his timbre richer. Daniel knows of these men. Frumentarii, Caesar's double agents. If they are seeking quarter with him, they are not just brutal scouts. "The Legate has requested your presence personally. This mercy shall not be extended again."

Daniel crosses his arms.

"If I don't?"

"That would be unfortunate," Vulpes intones, holding the final word as if it concerns him that it could be anything but. "But we are not animals. You can be of use to us. We do not discard assets."

There is nothing to be done. Daniel gathers his things and follows. Vulpes at the front of him, and Karl, a name he has heard second hand from the former, at his back with a knife providing motivation to keep walking.

Out into the open, he walks, with the moon swollen overhead and Utah's sky alight. The Legionaries observe him as he passes, with whisperings at the sight of his scripture tucked into his belt.

Joshua Graham sits clean and cold in the firelight.

He is just a man, Daniel reminds himself. A man who grew up in the same church as he did, who played on the same streets, who was baptised in the same basin with the chip in the corner and the moss at the pillar. A man who forsook his name, his family, and his God.

"Thomas." Joshua cleans his gun, checks the barrel and the ammo gauge. He has the thick, haughty voice of the preacher, a growl that begins in his belly. "Is this your companion?"

Thomas nods, noiseless. Joshua's shoe pushes into his neck, hunkering his maimed face further into the dirt.

"I would not weep for him." He speaks. "He renounced your God, under duress, and finally, you as well."

Daniel does not reply, not trusting himself to speak. Thomas, beyond sense, gropes between his legs. A wide, wet stain bleaches his wicker sewn jeans. Daniel's eye twitches, a swallow for his dry throat.

"Explain." He whispers. Joshua's hands pause over his pistol, the dark frame of his lashes drawing up to appraise him. From his face, Daniel can glean the man’s departed parents. Joseph Graham and Martha Graham. Of Martha's good face, there exists the hollow of her fine nostrils and faint mouth. Her black hair, frayed grey, scooped up above an ageing head lives in the Legate's ink slick above his high, white forehead. Of Joseph, there is nothing. He died before Daniel was born. A broken heart, the elders whispered. Martha, as wizened as she was at the end, did not have Joshua's eyes. Neither did Joseph. If there was shame in it, she never spoke, and died in silence and was buried in the same silence beside her husband in the boot hill overlooking their community and church.

Joshua lays his gun on his lap.

"Explain?" He says, lightly. "Explain what I have put into practice? Or explain the pitiful example of your companion?"

Karl and Vulpes exchange a look. The other men group close on his heels in fascinated witness.

"Yes." Daniel should be unafraid. There are greater men in his scripture who stood before worse challenges and survived. Even if they did not, their reward was grand in heaven. And yet, Daniel feels alone. He rests his hand on his scripture for strength. _Heavenly father look upon thy child. Heavenly father lends thee thy protection._ "Why have you done such a thing?"

The chair creaks as Joshua nonchalantly hangs one arm over his knee. He looks upon Daniel's hand, fastened to the spine of his bible.

"You a learned man?" He scratches the stubble that darkens his cheek and chin. "You know your scriptures?"

"Every single one."

"Hm." Then, smoothly, as if standing before the pews, he says; "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast _it_ from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that the whole body be cast into hell."

"Matthew five." Daniel's hand leaves his bible. "Line twenty-nine and thirty, respectfully."

"Very good." A pulling of lip and muscle aches Joshua’s pitiless face. "Was I not in keeping with your doctrine? I thought you would be pleased."

Laughter rumbles like thunder above the high crackling fire. Daniel shakes his head.

"All judgement lies with God."

"But are we not made in God's image?" He lifts from the chair. The shadows trim him, glinting his eyes and teeth in the fading light. "Do we not lead by his example?"

"And the rest of him?" Daniel adds, weakly. Thomas clings to his leg. Through the meat in his mouth, he cries forgiveness. "What doctrine do you follow that justifies such cruelty against your fellow kind?"

Blessed quiet, if only for a moment, and Joshua Graham of disgraced Canaan looks upon Daniel without expression.

"The same God that drew the breath from Egypt's children. That brought the plaques, the floods, the pestilence." He stands before him. "The same God that places you in my path."

Daniel looks him straight in the eye.

"It was you who dragged me out."

"For your providence." He places his thumb against the hot protrusion of Daniel's vein, feeding into his throat and chin. "For I have use of you, child of Canaan."

Thomas's arms circle Daniel's ankles, crushing hard. Karl kicks him with his sandals. He rolls away, winded, and Joshua's palm halts Daniel's flee to him.

"What?" Daniel spits. "What use does a missionary have for the Malpais Legate of Caesar’s Legion?"

"According to your friend, you are a trained medic." Joshua idly reaches for his shirt. Without a flinch, he peels it back, and Daniel recoils. Seated in the flesh is a bullet wound, with the incising instrument still visible within the gape of skin. It is shallow but unsightly. "My last aide died three days ago on our march. There is an opening."

"How can you...?" The physical impossibility gags him, before he sighs, and nods. "Yes, I can see it."

"I can trust in your skills?"

"Yes. A wound like that isn't hard to treat."

"Good." He draws the shirt back with a strained sigh, the first signal of any discomfort. "Then, you will serve me well, and long, granted you are loyal."

"One condition."

_Crack._

The lash of Vulpes’s baton rebounds off his back and Daniel buckles. A harsh shout of Latin makes the younger man shiver back into himself, his head bowed for his defiance.

Daniel opens his eyes to see Joshua's hand extended to him. He gets to his feet, unaided.

"I am listening."

"My friend. Thomas."

The surrounding Legionaries snicker. From the split of a nearby tent, the woman watches. The moon spools into the centre of her eye, filling up the iris and pupil all sickly silvers.

The Legate is bemused.

"Yes?"

"Spare him. Please."

Joshua's eyebrows raise as if musing on the request.

"As you wish."

A gunshot. Hard, precise, final. Joshua doesn't move, doesn't speak, but searches Daniel's face closely. Thomas's moaning has stopped.

The splatter wets the bottom of Daniel's shoes. He does not look down, or around. Just at Joshua, who sits comfortably, and gestures to the concealed wound. The woman places a stool beside the makeshift throne, and in her arms is a box of primal instruments and healing powders. Daniel sits, his fingers trembling as he cuts through the cotton to the blood beneath, as the men return to conversation and drinking. From the shadows of his eye, he sees the body dragged, rolled up like a dog carcass and thrown over the side of the mountain to the waters below.

* * *

The next morning, the sun scraps over the shrubbed landscape. It was cold in the early hours. Daniel awakes next to the bones of a campfire, frozen in his plaid and jeans. For a single moment, the landscape appears empty, and he would have been keen to run, if not for the shackle on his leg and his given word.

The men pack up the camps in bags and rolls. Smaller boys traverse the mountain paths, glugging enormous pots of clean water from the Canyon River. Daniel staggers to his feet as they pass, all too keen to not be noticed.

"You're awake." Karl has little of Vulpes' chill. He hands Daniel a dry crust roll and water. "Do not get used such lax treatment. Soon, you shall serve as second nature, slave."

Slave. Of course.

"As it stands," Karl continues, impervious to Daniel's visible shudder. "The Legate awaits you in his tent. You are to tend to him before we march. Make haste."

The birds cry overhead as Daniel approaches the main tent. Beside it, the children have started a fire and are heating a heavy cauldron over the flame. The water broils as they add in lotions and salts. The smell is thick, heady, pushing into Daniel's skull with its funk. He pulls aside the crimson flap and steps inside. A double camp bed resides in the centre of the room, among burnt down candles and scattered maps and books. He half expects the serving woman, but the body in the bed is one.

The Malpais Legate lays one arm above his head. Upon seeing Daniel, he nods, satisfied, and slips out of the sheets to his full height. He is naked, save for the dressings strapped to his chest and right arm.

"Daniel." He had not told the Legate his name. The late Thomas must have blathered more than he bled. The thought is a cruel one, unbidden, and Daniel is ashamed. "Come. See if my wound has improved."

"Yes." There are no masters here. Daniel invites him to sit at the end of the bed, which Joshua does, strangely level with him. Daniel is careful not to look upon him too intently. He had used the bathhouse same as the children growing up, but past adolescence they were encouraged to respect privacy and practice modesty. It had been difficult for some of the missionaries to cope with the more liberal tribes. Daniel had not yet had that experience, but Joshua's lack of shame bothers him regardless. He had heard rumours of the Legion and their open bathhouses, of men who fought naked and formed friendships that replaced the need for women. In the same breath, he had heard of homosexuals facing the same fate as his biblical son. Thomas would have simply said, over his forbidden drink and women, that it "was complicated."

Daniel prises away the dressing to find his stitching sound from the night before. The wound is clean and there are no signs of infection. He pats it down, watching Joshua's face for any signs of pain or tenderness. There is none, and as Joshua rises, Daniel goes to leave.

"I have not dismissed you." Joshua beckons, crooking his forefinger. Naked, with the sweat of the night on him, he appears devilish. Daniel approaches, unsure. "You have yet to tend on me. Are you keen to shuck your duties, on your first day?"

"I believed my duty was as your physician." Daniel chooses his words carefully. "What else ails you?"

"To tend to me." He draws behind the screen, much to Daniel's relief before the flap opens and in wheels the warm cauldron pot with the salts and spices. The men bow and leave quickly. Joshua, content, reveals himself once more and gestures to the cauldron. Daniel, the sink of realisation upon him, sees the sponges and brushes laid out in waiting.

Joshua stands over the mat, waiting.

It is nothing, he tells himself, as he shakily works the sponge to a lather and reminding himself of times he bathed cousins and siblings and friends. _It is nothing,_ he tells himself, as Joshua's sigh melts the air about them as he cleans him slowly, cautiously. What a vanity it is, for a man to demand others to see to his bathing.

He combs water and suds over Joshua's back, arms, and chest, up to his neck and gingerly over the healing wound. He drops to his knees, starting on the feet and ankles, warily working up the calves and thighs. He must not hesitate, for Joshua will mock him, or kill him, or drag it out as an example. He dips the sponge in the water, squeezing it out between his fingers, straining the fibres beneath the soap sore cracks of his knuckles.

He strays it to Joshua's inner thigh but a hand on his hair stalls him. Joshua, looking down with something like pity, takes the sponge from him.

"Prepare my clothes." There is no relief in his voice, nor is there any disappointment. "I will say this once. In my travelling bureau, you will find them."

Daniel nods, retreats, almost fleeing to the compartment. He finds Joshua's fresh shirt, his trousers, the layered bulletproof vest and the snakeskin belt and shoes. Joshua dries and dresses as Daniel fumbles with the vest and sash. Pleased, Joshua straps his gun to his belt and departs the tent. Daniel follows as it is better to be dismissed than caught dawdling.

The sun has risen fully, and the men get to work collapsing the Legate's tent. In several minutes, it was like they were never there at all. Before they leave, Joshua addresses Daniel.

"When you walk beside me, you will be unshackled." As he speaks, Karl breaks the bind on his ankle. He steps away, feeling as if he is floating underwater. "This is a momentary privilege. Try to run, and the punishment will be beyond what you can imagine. We will return to our main camp within the day, and come the evening, you will take the ceremony that marks you as mine. Do you understand?"

Daniel nods. Here he is, clothed as a free man, with his scripture and plaid and walking boots, with New Canaan still a sight on the Long 16. But now, he is further from home than ever, because one man has made it such.

"Do not fear." Joshua chuckles. "You will not be treated badly, granted you are loyal."

Blessed is he who turns the other cheek, Daniel thinks, as he falls in Joshua's shadow. The drums begin their beat. The heat rises with the dry wind, and the shrubbery sings with cricket life. Daniel falls into Joshua's step, recounting psalms in the hollows of his mind.

**Psalm 37:24**

_Though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand._

* * *

They march. It is a long walk. The hours dwindle. They do not stop for food or water and Daniel dare not think to touch his swollen flask tugged to his belt. The men do not seem to be affected by the walk, keeping time with the drums and the ceremonious shouts from Karl. Daniel, like all New Canaanites, is a natural walker, but even he struggles to keep up the relentless pace.

Finally, they pause in a green clearing. Daniel, dizzy from the heat, takes off his hat and scratches at his hair. Joshua, sweatless, gestures for a table. An ancient map is lain over it and Joshua pencils their position, murmuring low to Vulpes, with Karl monitoring the troops. Occasionally, he glances at Daniel, as if to be certain he is still there. The map they pour over pains Daniel in its simplicity. It is out of date. New Canaanites are natural calligraphers. Joshua should have known that.

But it is a rest, and he drinks from his canteen and chews the pinyon nuts dusty in his jean pocket. It is so little sustenance, but it is all the strength he can wager for the journey ahead. Even now, it has not sunk in. He is praying, he realises. He has been praying for the entire day for a miracle. What is this is God's plan for him? If so, why such a cruel one?

Joshua straightens up. The map and table are spirited away. The men sit in their circles, gnawing salted meat and drinking water. Joshua barely touches his offered food.

The serving woman is among the children. One of the men calls her over like an animal. She obeys, following him into a gouge. She lies on her back, opens her legs.

Vulpes sneers and slaps his hands. The disgraced Legionary scowls, but skulks back to the fire. The woman scuttles free and returns to the children.

"Surely we can contain our appetites until we are returned to camp?" Vulpes heckles, lightly. "Any other displays of weakness will be swiftly dwelt with, as the Legate has ordered."

As the Legate had ordered. Daniel watches Joshua, who had not even looked up during the altercation. As if sensing Daniel's scrutiny, he rises his gaze. Daniel’s heartbeat is so loud as to blot out even the sound of his own breathing. He reflects on the earlier promise. What ceremony could they speak of, that marked another man as a man's property?

"Daniel." Daniel realises he is daydreaming away from the camp, his body turned toward the only route liable for freedom. He comes, as called, and Joshua notably relaxes. "My wound. Has the stitching kept?"

Daniel's hands hover over Joshua's shirt. The Legate looks up at him, the sunlight a piercing shaft of white across his face. Daniel peels back the label and sees the stitches are fine. He is not surprised; he is a gifted medic.

"Yes."

"Yes…?"

Daniel looks at him warily.

"Yes, Malpais Legate."

"Very good." Daniel had feared it would have been Master. No Master but the Lord if you had to have one. "Keep close to me, Daniel."

He stands. The men pack up immediately, once again arranging a marching formation. Daniel inwardly groans.

There is no further time to muse. The drums beat and Daniel, as promised, remains close by Joshua's side.

* * *

The night had finally come. The drums reached their standstill. The sunset had outlined the outer tents in radiant dying red until finally, it sunk below the dark fringe of the horizon. Daniel, exhausted to his bones, struggles to keep upright beside Joshua. His belly growls with hunger, the press of the day's walk heavy on his eyelids.

At Karl's command, the men disperse. In the lit tents, Daniel sees the outlines of spectral women, knelt beside a cot and candle. The men enter. The women blow the candles out, inviting the darkness.

"This is Camp Lignum." Joshua undoes his sash, winding it around the knuckles. "For the next month, this is where we shall convene."

An old shack hung with red flags is built into the hillside. A hunting lodge, Daniel thinks, with the thick log walls and the square windows. Vulpes and Karl bow as Joshua stalks past, Daniel close behind, before Vulpes's palm stops his chest.

"Mighty Legate," Vulpes says, smoothly. "Your slave is yet to be initiated. Before he enters your quarters, perhaps it would be fitting to curb the…" He wrinkles his nose. "…influences of the road off of him."

Daniel had heard the Legate was an intense man, but Joshua's gaze seems to shrink him down to his base components. As it is, his focus settles on Daniel's bible, strapped into his belt. The incline in his lips could almost be wistful.

"Yes." He turns to enter the cabin. "I want him back to me within the hour, to be marked."

"Of course, Mighty Legate." Vulpes snaps back to Daniel with a venomous smile. "Now, I say we get you ready for your new existence. Are you excited to be a part of the Legion?"

The question is rhetorical. Men drop out of the darkness as if they have been waiting for him, and Daniel is forcibly dragged to a nearby tent. To resist would be unwise, and he is not so stupid as to see the sick hope in Vulpes's eyes at the very possibility.

"Over there," Karl commands, a figure sunk into the darkness of the tent. Daniel is flung against the neighbouring wall. The lanterns burn low here, make the shadows dance. "Strip."

The order dries Daniel's mouth, but the moment’s hesitation cracks against his legs in the snap of a whip. He gasps, fumbling at his shirt. These scraps of his old life, sliding off his skin like water. His plaid shirt and wicker sewn jeans, the odd socks, the walking boots licked with mud and mire. Karl observes indifferently from the door. Vulpes is closer, firelight bloomed huge and hungry in his eye.

"Not quite there yet." Vulpes's buttery voice drips with bemusement. "We are not so primitive as to be upset by the human body. Finish."

Daniel is frozen.

"Or" Vulpes continues with his teeth on display. "I can get you help if you would prefer."

Daniel shoves down his briefs, kicks them off into the pile. The clothes are gathered and cast into the fire. Daniel's shout is suffocated by a bucketful of freezing water, soaking him cold to the bone. A patter of perfumed powder is cast on his body, and he gags, breathing it in. It smells of the sinfully scented bath from the morning. Two men, older slaves, have shuffled in beside him, and grip his shoulders and neck, knifing off his thick dark hair and beard.

"Wait." Karl holds up a hand. "The Legate has ordered his hair to be left. The rest, as our agreed procedure."

That the Legate should have any input into his appearance is worrying. The slaves shave his face until it is as bare as the rest of him.

"Quite." Vulpes sighs. "Not yet. He is to be marked before he finds his higher purpose."

The slave rags presented to him are humiliatingly short, fashioned in sackcloth with a violent red cross lashed onto the back. Daniel's bible and knife sit in the corner, untouched. The thought of being separated from the word of God, these relics of his home and life, chills him. He dresses in the rough, ruined tunic, tugging the skirt down as far as it will allow. Vulpes picks up his effects, humming under his breath, elated at the tension knotted into Daniel's limbs.

"All items now belong to your Master," He explains. "Come quickly. The hour is almost upon us."

They walk him back to his tent. The main bonfire has been lit outside the log cabin. The soldiers, sated, leave the tents with the silent women, and assume their place on the mats and rushes. Daniel is shoved into the centre of the leering faces. They whisper amongst themselves. Daniel reminds himself to breathe. He is still alive and never alone.

Joshua strides into view. He has abandoned his red sash and gold fastener. In his SWAT uniform, he is alien to the men around him, a spectre from a better time wandered into ancient civilisation's ugly revival.

They have brought out his throne of horn and satin. Joshua does not sit but gestures to Vulpes to bring Daniel's effects. Vulpes eagerly disappears from Daniel's side, returning with the items.

Joshua slides the book from Vulpes's hand, running his finger down the binding. For a moment - and Daniel is certain he has imagined this - he almost smiles. To Daniel's relief, the book does not meet the fire. Instead, it is tucked into his belt, beside another New Canaan rite of passage. The gun is silver, patterned with snakeskin, inscribed with the same prayer in the handle. All weapons created by the New Canaanites carried messages of judgement and redemption both.

Heaven's judgement.

He holds up Daniel’s knife to the moonlight. He tsks beneath his breath and flexes his hand toward Vulpes expectantly. The young man is almost giddy to be of service and presents Graham with a whetstone.

The shrill scream of metal shreds the air. Joshua sharpens the machete slowly and with insulting skill. His awesome blue eyes, hooded by the starlight, focus on Daniel, measuring him up until finally satisfied, he drops the stone into Vulpes's palm and with a jerk of his head, whistles at Karl.

Daniel is heaved forward until the swarm of fire licks his ankles, close enough to blister. He looks straight into Joshua's eyes and sees anticipation.

He could ask, but it would do no good.

The slave rags are torn from his back. Karl swivels him, grasping his wrists and holding them high. Daniel, shocked, sees the surrounding men lean in, and in the shadows, the drums begin to beat.

"This..." Vulpes's breathy whisper tingles his ear. "This is a singular honour, slave. To be marked for ownership by the Legate himself."

_Marked._

"Really?" Daniel snarls. "Do you want to trade places?"

Vulpes chuckles and slips away to meld in with the faceless crowds and the thunder of the drums. Daniel strains as he hears the knell of Joshua's breath on his shoulder.

There is a pierce of white hot pain.

The leak of blood is hot and dribbling between his shoulder blades. Though the blaze of it, he senses the shape that is being cut, the swirl and lick of a high _J_ and the drop of a _G_. The knife lingers inside the flesh, to certain that the scar will remain.

Initials. Ownership.

The knife is prised away. Daniel's breath is thinned with the agony. He is released by Karl and forced to his knees before the Legate. The throne of bone and rag has returned. Joshua, washing his bloodied hands in a bowl, sits with ease.

"It is customary to rename our slaves." Blood has touched his lip and cheek. "But I believe I find your name acceptable enough. You may keep it."

Daniel cannot speak. Whatever Joshua sees as he looks upon him only serves to amuse him.

"Take him to my cabin." Joshua turns toward the fire. "Dress him in clothes befitting his status. He is to stay until I have need of him again."

Daniel, despite the pain, rises to his own feet. Karl, impressed, falls into step with him as he hobbles to the lodge.

"The pain is over." Karl's tone is not cruel, but reverent. "Now, granted you are loyal, you shall have few pains. To be of use to the Legate is an honour secondary to serving Caesar himself."

Daniel's brain, finally breaking after the events of the last forty-eight hours, is too stunned to speak. A satisfied Karl opens the door of the handsome log cabin. 

The walls are hung with the obligatory red. There are books and maps and a simple cot laid beside a spotless double bed.

"Here." Karl pushes a bundle into Daniel's arm. "Put this on. I shall leave you. Rest yourself and be prepared if the Legate calls on you. Ave, Daniel."

He leaves Daniel with an almost kindly smile, and just like that, Daniel is finally alone.

In a fugue state, Daniel lies out the uniform on his bed. It is an old Followers coat, with _B.C_ sewn delicately into the arm. The underclothes are thick wasteland rags but are thankfully long and trousered.

As if by clockwork, he reaches his neck to get undressed.

He sways, swallows. The rolling of the two days stalks in his brain, sand and sweat and the empty caverns of Thomas's eyes.

Daniel just manages to grab an old vase cluttered up in the corner, and is viciously, violently sick.


End file.
